I took Monday mostly off, which seems to be working well for me. I did finish curating a master character list for my Flames series. Fourteen stories so far and about 190 characters. Some of those only show up in one story. Next week I’ll be moving on to the Gilbert, Co series, updating the timeline and starting the character list.

Tuesday I made it through almost all my writing goals for the week: Drafting, editing, plotting, & side projects. The only ones I had left were Jonas & Isaac and By the Gun. I finished the goal for J&I this morning. So, I’m on to By the Gun now.

So, that’s what I’ll be sharing from for this week’s WiPPet Wednesday. I have the first 11 paragraphs of Part 3 this week. I just wrote this last week, so it’s still rough. The last time I shared from this, we were in Alejandro’s POV. Part 3 is mostly from Carlos'(Alejandro’s younger brother) POV.

“We cannot keep meeting out here this way,” Catherine said.
But, Carlos was shaking as he stared at her. Months had gone by. Months and he was wondering if he was even seeing the real person. “Did you know?” he demanded.
“Know what?” she asked, sliding down from the saddle and moving toward him.
He pulled slightly on his horse’s reins, making his horse take a step back. “Just tell me,” he demanded.
She shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. My father is getting suspicious, though. I barely escaped notice by his men tonight. We are going to have to stop for a while.”
They might have to be stopping for good. Thank the Christ all they had ever done was talk and kiss. If more had passed between them, the betrayal might be even harsher. “Did you know?” he asked again. “Did you know your father paid men to teach my father a lesson? Which apparently included killing nearly his whole family. Did you know all that destruction was started by your father’s wounded pride?”
Catherine stared at him, color draining from her face. “No,” she finally said. “You have to be wrong. Father would not do something like that. He wanted to work with your father on something, some kind of partnership. But, he wouldn’t have done that just because he said no.”
“You said it yourself when we first met,” he reminded her. “No one tells him no and walks away unscathed. You can’t tell me you didn’t know.”
“Yes,” she said, “I can. I know Father can be ruthless in business, but even he would not go this far.”
She seemed to actually believe that, but Carlos couldn’t make himself trust that. He forced his horse back another step. He’d been reeling since Alejandro had told him what Patrick had said before their gunfight almost two weeks ago. And to think, he’d still been coming out here to see Catherine when his brother could have been dying. Because of something her father put into motion. He was such an idiot.
“I won’t be coming back out here,” he told her. “And I’m not going to let your father take the rest of my family from me. I can’t believe I let myself start to fall for you.”

Today’s Story a Day prompt was to write a story using only dialogue. This happens during the short story I’m writing to put up on my Patreon page this month. It’s back story for my Flames series. There are several different people in this, so it may be a little confusing(when I add dialogue tags and such later, it will be clearer), but I did try to make it clear who was talking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Wake up!”
“Go away, Adrian.”
“No, Callum. You have to get up.”
“It’s not even morning yet. Let me go back to sleep.”
“No, you have to get up. There’s a fire. We all have to get out.”
“You get out. I’m going back to sleep.”
“Damn it, Cal. Get up.”
“Ow. Why’d you pull me out of bed? I’m…Oh shit.”
“That’s smoke. I told you we need to get out. Go get Darcie. I’ll get Connor.”
“What’s going on?”
“We’re going to be fine, Connor. Don’t worry. We’re getting out.”
“Why?”
“House is on fire. We’re getting out. Shit, shit, shit. Are you okay?”
“It hurts.”
“I know. We’re almost out.”
“Stay here. I have to find Dory.”
“You can’t go back in there, young man.”
“Just take care of my brother. My youngest sister is still in there.”
“The firefighters will get her. You have to stay here.”
“Here they come, Adrian. They got her.”
“Darcie, she’s not moving. She’s not…Is she okay?”
“We didn’t get there in time. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I tried. I couldn’t get to her.”
“This isn’t your fault, Adrian. It isn’t anyone’s fault.”
“But, I was in charge while you and Dad were gone. I shouldn’t have let it happen.”
“You didn’t. It just happened anyway. And you got the rest out. We’re going home now.”
“How? It’s gone.”
“Your grandparents’. We’re staying there for now. Your dad already took the others to settle them down.”
“How are we going to go on? Dory was the best of us.”
“Together. That’s the only way we can do it.”

I wrote up this story over the last week, using a prompt from one of the patreon pages I subscribe to. There were three words to use somehow in the story. Jeremiah, Silas, and Corrin seemed to think it fit them perfectly, so I started writing them. Three words, three characters, and three scenes. I put it up on my Patreon page yesterday. I’m going to share the beginning of it here, but you can read the rest if you subscribe for as little as $1 a month.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jeremiah ran a finger over the round ‘E’ key and glanced back over his shoulder. The shopkeeper had barely taken his eyes off him since he’d stepped in here. He brushed off whatever the man’s opinion of him might be and turned back to the item in front of him.

This was not something Corrin put on her list to him and Silas. No, that consisted of mostly books. Notebooks, too. She wasn’t even the reason he’d stopped in her. He’d seen an antique model fire truck in the shop window he was sure his grandfather would like. This vintage typewriter had caught his attention when he stepped inside.

Corrin was the only one he still had to buy for. His grandfather never expected anything, but Jeremiah still tried to pick something up for him if it caught his eye. It had been Corrin who had been nearly impossible to buy for this year. Even harder than his niece, and she couldn’t even tell him what she wanted yet.

He smiled as he thought of little Doreen, just over a year old and already giving his sister and brother-in-law a run for their money.

It was great.

He slid his finger over to the ‘R’ key and down to the ‘F’ but resisted the urge to press down on any of them; he didn’t need to get an even dirtier look from the shopkeeper. Yes, she would like this. It wasn’t their first Christmas together—last year they’d all agreed to get stuff they needed for the new house—but he wanted to make it the best one. For both of the people he loved.

With a sigh, he headed up to the counter. His steps felt heavy. He should have gone home and gotten some sleep, but he was nearly out of time. He figured he’d stop in on his way there. The exhaustion weighed down on him now.

“What can I help you with, young man?” The shopkeeper’s voice sounded tight and a bit disdainful. Jeremiah wondered if it would change the old man’s opinion of him to know he’d just come off a twenty-four hour shift at the fire station.

It didn’t matter. Jeremiah forced some cheerfulness into his voice. “I wondered about the old typewriter over there. How much do you want for it?”

The man made a sound almost like he had a hairball caught in his throat. His sister had given them a kitten over the summer—a stray she’d taken in had kittens and her husband insisted they couldn’t keep all of them—and it made that same noise.

It’s been a pretty good week for me. On Monday I decided to change how I worked on my projects. Which takes me back to working on drafting one project at a time. It should also still give me time to work on plotting & editing other projects. I’ll figure out how many scenes I have to write a day to meet a deadline and those are the scenes I’ll write that day. And whatever writing time I have left will be split between editing & plotting. As long as the characters I keep waiting behave, this should work.

Yesterday was my second-youngest cousin’s wedding. Her and the youngest are only about a month apart(she got married about 1.5 years ago) and are about 8 years younger than me. I can still remember when they were really little. Hard to believe they’re married now. It was a good day. The invitation said to wear casual attire and I may have celebrated that a bit. 😉 If I can get away with wearing pants instead of a skirt or dress, oh yeah. The ceremony was pretty quick, only about 20 minutes. Then, we waited at the reception hall for about 2 hours before they got done with pictures. Good dinner, lots of dancing(that I mostly just watched, because I’d prefer to do that anyway), then we came home. Only got a comment from 1 sister(and not the one I’d thought it would come from) about me not drinking. I don’t have a problem with drinking, I just don’t do a lot of it. And I didn’t feel like it last night, so I only had a can of pop. Whatever.

Anyway, on to my progress for this week:

Write: Shoot for 10000 words between projects– 12125/10000. All of those were on Defending the Heart since I changed how I was working on things. I also got the novella in this series, Heart of Christmas, mostly brainstormed. 1 more mind map to do.

But, Piers didn’t hear any more. He was already running out the door. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to Xavier. No matter what it cost him. *yeah that doesn’t sound too good does it. The next scenes are going to be intense.

Side Projects– 1000 words/200 per project – 1178/1000 words. Didn’t quite hit 200 on each project, though. And going to shelve Fade Away. it’s just not coming together the way I’d hoped.

Midas’ Daughter – 264 words – She was definitely not what he’d first assumed. And he definitely liked the girl he was getting to know.

Fade Away – 138 words – I was fading away and no one noticed a thing.

Patrick & Sarah – 267 words – “Will,” she said, her breath catching. “He has terrors at night sometimes. I’ll just make sure he’s okay.” *yeah, pretty sure those “terrors” go by the name of Tommy.

Tavin & Haiwee – 157 words – They walked along in silence for a few minutes. It was probably better this way. Tavin was less likely to put his foot in his mouth if he kept it closed.

Roman – 225 words – She shrank away as he approached the doorway. “Couldn’t sleep,” she mumbled. “Thought I was the only one awake then I saw your light. I didn’t mean to disturb you.” *Oh, Tereza, you’ll learn you have nothing to fear from Roman

Dougal & Shae – 127 words – “How’s that going?” his father asked, his voice a little gruff. “Your new job. It everything you thought it would be, getting away from your old man.”“Da,” Dougal said, aggravation and affection mixing in his voice. “You know it’s not like that. We can’t work together, though. You had to see that, too.”

Patreon – write new side story(this one will be Mason & Lila from First Choice, Second Chance) & if I get chapter 1 of Patrick & Sarah’s story back from beta & edited I’ll post it too– I got the Mason & Lila story started Saturday morning. 123 words. And I got Chapter 1 back Friday night but have only read through the comments so far. Will start working on edits this week. I did send Chapter 1 of Tavin & Haiwee to beta as well.

Mason & Lila – “How’d you know I was looking for Lila?” he asked before the rest went through his head. He’d been up early doing chores and really could have used more caffeine before coming to school. “What do you mean pop quiz? And how do you know about it if it’s supposed to be a secret?” *I may like writing Mason & Brian’s early friendship as much as I do Mason & Lila getting together.

Snow White Twist – read through– started the read through. Got through Chapter 1 as of this morning.

Listen: From the Moment We Met(Marina Adair) & The Emerald Brooch(Katherine Lowry Logan) – finished From the Moment We Met(really enjoyed) and have listened to almost half of The Emerald Brooch(loving it)

Read: Walk the Edge(Katie McGarry), Leveling the Field(Megan Erickson), Ignite(Rebecca Yarros), Forbidden(Beverly Jenkins), Murder Comes Ashore(Julie Anne Lindsey),Destiny(Carly Phillips),and It’s Always Been You(Jessica Scott) – Finished Walk the Edge(loved), Leveling the Field(loved), and Ignite(enjoyed). I liked Forbidden, though it felt like she kept putting historical details in she’d found during research even if they didn’t really have a place in the story, and it kept yanking me out of it. I really enjoyed Murder Comes Ashore(though I’m not Team Sebastian, honestly he kept pissing me off. I like Adrian much better). I finished Destiny on the drive to the wedding and enjoyed it. I’d taken my kindle along too but hadn’t thought to load It’s Always Been You before leaving the house(hadn’t realized it was in the cloud not already on the device) and didn’t have internet available to do that. So, I ended up starting one that was already on the kindle, Dancer of the Nile(Veronica Scott). I’m only 19% through it now. I’ll probably read It’s Always Been You today then pick Dancer back up.

Crochet: Flower Coaster– I finished this one

Loom: Ambrosia Love Scarf– got this one started but not too far

A to Z Challenge: Draft – Post B, C-Z – I finished the ‘B’ post and have 536 words for ‘C’.

A lot of green for this week. Happy with that and the blue. These goals are only going to go through Tuesday. Then, I’m going to go straight from my monthly goals instead of making a list each week(I’ll still have that weekly list in my to-do lists, just not here). Until then, my goals for finishing up February:

It feels like I’ve been running behind or just barely on track the last couple weeks. Things might be falling into place with my routine now because I’m actually ahead this week. Well, for the most part. Thursday I had trouble focusing on any words and barely managed to squeak out 700+ words on Defending the Heart. And I didn’t have much motivation to work on my secondary project or editing Stained Blood. Friday I got up and words just tumbled out(over 1700 in 1.5 hours). But, again, the motivation to work on anything else was just…nonexistent. It probably didn’t help the kids were home Friday for an in-service day. That always messed with my routine. But, I am well ahead on my reading. It’s Saturday morning and I’ve already started reading Sunday’s book(yes, I even put my reading on my to-do list). And I’m putting this post together already.

I also worked on getting my Patreon page ready to go. I hadn’t been sure about doing this, but I finally decided to go forward with it. We’ll see how it goes. I have a list of stories, little side trails from my novels, that I’ll write for it. So far there are 24 on there. That should keep me busy for a while. And of course, feel free to check it out if you’d like.

That’s pretty much all the other business I’ve got for the end of the week. So, on to my progress for this week:

Write: Shoot for 10000 words between projects– 7863/10000 words. Yeah, so I wasn’t quite ahead of things on this one. Maybe next week.

Defending the Heart – 5914 words – Ross sighed. “Do you actually expect me to believe this? Come on, Xavi. I know you, and I know when you’re telling tales. What actually happened to him? And why don’t you want the authorities to know?”
Xavier grit his back teeth together. Ross thought all he did was help install security systems. It was just better, easier, that way. He would have gotten pissy, thinking they were stepping on the cops’ toes if he knew everything the security company did. *Xavier seems to keep running into “friends” of his. Though the two different ones had different reactions to him being with Piers.

Midas’ Daughter – 504 words – There was just something about her that kept drawing him in, no matter how much distance he tried to maintain. It wasn’t going to work. Not when every part of him wanted to be as near to her as possible. Just to soak up some of that natural joy she seemed to carry with her. At least when her father wasn’t around.

Stay a Little Longer – 780 words – “It’s not a problem. Not like I didn’t deserve it.” Even if some of the barbs still stung.
“I don’t know,” Patrick said after a moment, “I think you deserve more than you give yourself credit for.”

Not Meant to Be – 581 words – His willpower against his own addiction was pretty low at that. And he was going right toward her, but he didn’t see another choice.

Playing with Fire – 84 words – Jeremiah had confided in him about what was going on, with him, and Corrin. How she’d started crashing on his couch nearly two months ago now. He hadn’t told him everything, but then again, he didn’t even know everything.

Edit: Stained Blood – write new scenes– I finished 2/14 scenes and started the next one. Added 854 words

Plot: Playing with Fire – finish outlining scenes– I finished this on Wednesday. Nothing else to plot until I’m almost finished with Defending the Heart and start planning a novella to go along with the series.

Side Projects – 1000 words– 1059/1000 words. I had all these done by Wednesday

Fade Away – 213 words – What the hell was going on here? I was used to being mostly ignored. Sometimes I didn’t even mind it. But, this was different. It was like they weren’t even seeing me.

Patrick & Sarah – 207 words – Patrick felt something shiver down his spine at her explanation. It didn’t make sense to him. But, he hadn’t been her, either. Maybe it had happened just as her son had said. He hadn’t met the older boy, so he didn’t have any idea if he’d lie about something like that or not.

Tavin & Haiwee – 213 words – That brought even more softness to his face, and it made her feel light. That she could be the one to bring that to him. She didn’t know why that was so important to her, but she wanted to keep that look there in his eyes.

Roman – 223 words – She left the kitchen then and for the first time in what felt like weeks, even months, Roman felt hope that they still existed.

Dougal & Shae – 203 words – Instead he only had thoughts of a green-eyed lass who had barely even granted him a smile the night before. She obviously didn’t care for him, so why couldn’t he get her off his mind? *Haha, oh poor Dougal. 😀

Snow White Twist – fill in [xx] and start read through– I got all 52 [xx] filled in and sent it to my kindle do start the read through

Listen: Glass Sword(Victoria Aveyard) & Unintended Consequences(Marti Green)– I finished Glass Sword(!!! And that ending just about killed me), started Unintended Consequences but after an hour still didn’t care, so stopped. Got some more through Kindle Unlimited and started listening to From the Moment We Met(Marina Adair). Much better. 🙂

Read: Finish Duke of Thorns(Sara Ramsey), Dead Before Dying(Kerry Schafer), The Unsung Hero(Suzanne Brockman), Truths We Tell(Brenda St John Brown), Of the Bauble(Debbie McGowan), Relic of Sorrows(Lindsay Buroker), Best Worst Mistake(Lia Riley), Written in the Stars(Aisha Saeed), The Rule Maker(Jennifer Blackwood), & Against the Sun(Kat Martin) – I finished Duke of Thorns(liked), Dead Before Dying(really enjoyed), and The Unsung Hero(enjoyed) on Sunday. Read Truths We Tell on Monday(really liked) and finished Of the Bauble Tuesday(loved). I also finished Relic of Sorrows(loved), Best Worst Mistake(really enjoyed), Written in the Stars(really enjoyed), and The Rule Maker(loved). I finished Against the Sun last(Saturday) night. I enjoyed this one too.

Knit: Clean Slate Hat– I just finished this morning.

A to Z Challenge: Draft – Posts A-Z– I finished the ‘A’ post with almost 900 words and I’ve written about 275 words on the ‘B’ post.

Quite a bit of blue and green and only the one red. Not a bad week at all. So, not to look toward next week’s goals:

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had some plans for the back story novellas I started sharing here. But, I never said any more about it. Well, I’ve been quietly working on getting my Patreon page set up. Yes, I’ve decided to do this. I figured it could be a way to make some extra money from my writing, and possibly even a steadier stream of income than I’ve been making from my books. I was willing to at least give it a chance.

So, I’ve got my page set up and finished typing the first piece to share there. You may have read it before as it showed up in the first World Unknown Review. Most of the other ones I’ll share will probably be shorter, though some may end up longer. And I’m planning to share the back story novellas chapter by chapter. For now I’ll only be sharing Patrick & Sarah’s & Tavin & Haiwee’s, since those are the only ones where the main stories have been published.

I’m going to be going through my published novels and making lists of the little side stories I can write from them, side characters, back stories, or even some “after the HEA” moments. If you’ve read any of my novels and have any ideas for more I can write, I’d be glad to see what they are.